


Soft Hands

by rickyisms



Series: it all started with 1 (one) twitter DM [6]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Nail Polish, kent parson is a pretty boy, tumblr prompt but i wrote the prompt for myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25217326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rickyisms/pseuds/rickyisms
Summary: "i feel an overwhelming need to write about whiskey/kent painting each other's nails someone stop me i have responsibilities" none of u fuckers stopped me
Relationships: Kent "Parse" Parson/Connor "Whiskey" Whisk
Series: it all started with 1 (one) twitter DM [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738009
Comments: 13
Kudos: 135





	Soft Hands

**Author's Note:**

> it's short and weird and i did not proofread it so have fun

Kent gets drunk on Halloween, as is tradition. The party at Swoops’ place gets out of control, as is tradition, and Kent drinks himself under the table (you guessed it, tradition). 

He doesn’t black out anymore because it’s a lot shittier getting up in the morning at 27 than it was at 19 but things go fuzzy a little after midnight sometime after he finished his first mixed drink but before he started drinking straight out of the bottle. 

He gets home though, manages to call an uber and stumble through his own door and flop down on the couch. The first thing he wants to do is facetime Whiskey. 

He sees his face as the call pops up. He tries in vain to fix his hair, he finds a piece of glitter in it, vaguely remembers hugging someone in a sparkly angel costume. 

“Hey,” Whiskey greets him, Kent can’t tell where he’s sitting, he’d recognize his bedroom. 

“Are you busy?” Kent asks. 

“Are you wearing whiskers?” Whiskey asks instead of answering. 

Kent smiles, a little bit goofier than he would sober, he’s proud of his dumb costume, “I’m a rat!” he says. 

Whiskey snorts out a laugh. He adjusts his phone, Kent can see he’s sitting outside his bedroom window on the roof. 

“Are you outside?” Kent asks, easily distracted when drunk (and always actually)

“Ford barfed, she’s falling asleep in my bed right now, I’ll probably just crash in her bed tonight but I’m not tired yet,” Whiskey shrugs, “How much did you drink tonight?” Whiskey asks. 

Kent didn’t think he looked that gone, but Whiskey’s the one looking at him. 

“I don’t remember,” Kent says.

Whiskey sighs, “I think you know that I’m about to tell you to go get a glass of water.”

“Ugh,” Kent groans, “You’re such a mom.”

“I was on Nursey patrol tonight, force of habit,” Whiskey says. 

“Nursey’s the guy who challenged a tree to a dance off last weekend, right?”

“That’s him. Water, please?” Whiskey says. 

“Fine,” Kent dramatically sighs and stands up to walk to the kitchen. He sets his phone on the counter while he opens the fridge. He finds the pitcher behind a stack of ready made chicken and rice dinners and pours himself a glass. He sits at one of the bar stools and holds the glass up to the phone as if he’s proving that it is in fact water that he’s about to drink. Whiskey gives him a fond but exasperated smile then squints at his own screen. 

“Did you paint your nails?” Whiskey asks. 

“Huh?” Kent looks down at his hands, and sure enough, his nails are painted black. 

He looks down at the shiny polish, his middle finger is actually painted a deep sparkly purple. He turns his hand to see how the light reflects against it. 

“I don’t remember doing that,” Kent says, he laughs. He picks up the cup of water, but he can’t stop looking at his fingernails, how they stand out against his skin, against the glass of the cup. 

“Just because of that I’m making you drink another glass of water before you go to bed,” Kent hears the fondness in Whiskey’s voice but all he can focus on are his hands. He keeps turning them over, touching things just to see how they look in his hands. If Whiskey notices him acting weird he doesn’t mention it. 

___

Swoops is the only guy who doesn’t chirp him at practice a few days later. The polish is flaking off. In fact he’s the one that tells them to shut up after a few rounds of it. 

“Ay! Fuck off boys, it was Halloween,” he says, it’s enough to get everyone to lay off. 

Kent remembers sitting on the bathroom floor with Swoops’ girlfriend on Halloween, she was dressed like a punk or something, black nail polish to match. She had held his hand in her lap, he stared as the she brushed over his fingernail. She got him to blow on them and he just felt  _ pretty  _ in that moment. 

He buys nail polish remover after practice and scrubs it off of his fingernails. He doesn’t need the trouble just to feel pretty. 

___

Kent’s sitting on the floor of Whiskey’s bedroom, he flew out during a rare weekend off in early November just to spend the night. The window’s open, curtains blowing every now and then as a gust of wind comes in. Kent can see the street lights turn on one at a time as it gets darker. 

There’s a bottle of wine, only a quarter left now, next to Kent. They were playing a card game a few minutes ago but now Whiskey’s on his phone answering a text from his agent and sending something to his dad. Kent’s pleasantly wine drunk, loose and warm. He leans back, spreads his arms out behind him and looks around the room. There’s not a lot of personality but there’s just enough of Whiskey here, photographs and a couple ticket stubs on a bulletin board. A calendar with game days highlighted, class schedule pinned to the back of the door. 

There’s also stuff that definitely doesn’t belong to Whiskey lying around. A San Jose sharks pillow case on one of his pillows, a computer science textbook wedged under a copy of Hamlet, he knows they study in here sometimes. There’s a plate with a half eaten muffin next to his laptop on his desk. And on his nightstand, a light blue bottle of nail polish. Whiskey’s nails are rough and unmanicured so Kent assumes it belongs to Ford. He reaches over and snatches it, Whiskey distracted by his text message. 

Kent turns the bottle over in his hand, feeling the cool glass of the bottle. He holds his thumb against the bottle, imagines what the colour would look like against his skin. He untwists the cap, quickly twists it back on. 

He sees Whiskey staring at him. 

“I think this belongs to Denice,” he says as an explanation. 

“Yeah, it’s not mine, so,” Whiskey shrugs. 

Kent sets it down on the floor next to him, he feels his cheeks turning red like he’s been caught with something he shouldn’t have. 

Whiskey scoots forward so he’s sitting cross legged in front of Kent, knees pressed together. He holds Kent’s hand in his, runs his thumb gently over the back of his knuckles and picks up the nail polish. 

“What are you doing?” Kent asks. 

“Can I?” Whiskey asks, “Paint your nails?”

And Kent just nods, realizes his mouth is hanging open and snaps it shut. Whiskey positions Kent’s left hand on top of his knee.

“Sorry if it’s bad,” Whiskey mutters, face screwed up in concentration as he wipes the excess nail polish against the edge of the bottle. 

Kent’s arm hairs are standing on end and he’s not sure if it’s because Whiskey’s holding his hand so gently or if it’s because the nail polish feels sort of cool against the nail of his thumb. 

Whiskey’s concentrating face is undoubtedly very adorable but Kent can’t stop watching the brush swipe over his nail. Whiskey does a second coat on his left hand before he starts on his right and the pale blue colour gets a little more opaque and Kent thinks it’s pretty. 

“Careful,” Whiskey says, moving Kent’s left hand down on to the floor and putting Kent’s right hand in its place. 

He repeats the same process. Inevitably, a little bit of polish gets on his skin. Whiskey rubs it away softly, the stain is still there, he furrows his brows but moves on to the next fingernail. 

Whiskey finishes, looks down at his handiwork, “It’s not perfect,” he says. 

“I love it,” Kent says, more breathlessly than he means too. 

“Careful,” Whiskey says, “Ford usually lets hers dry for like an hour before she does anything.”

“Can I at least do yours?”

“Yeah,” Whiskey says, “Just, hold on,” He picks Kent’s hand up, gently as always and he blows on the not quite dry polish. Kent joins him, a faint smile crosses Whiskey’s face. 

Kent picks up the bottle after that. And he likes the way his hands look picking things up, he realizes.  _ Pretty  _ is the word that keeps flashing in his brain. 

He feels just as pretty painting Whiskey’s nails as he did getting his own nails painted and he loves how gentle and delicate he has to be to get it to turn out nice. 

He hunches over and blows on Whiskey’s nails when he’s done painting them. Whiskey ambushes him with a gentle kiss on the cheek. 

Kent’s hand comes up to cup Whiskey’s face instinctively. His own hands look foreign for a second, but then he gets used to the small splash of colour on his hands. It looks soft against Whiskey’s face, he runs his thumb over his jaw, kisses the spot his finger touched. 

“You look pretty,” Whiskey says. 

Whiskey knows that Kent likes it when he gets called pretty, knows that he respond to it, leans in when he’s playing with his hair, preens when Whiskey teases him by calling him a “pretty boy.”

“You’re pretty too,” Kent points out. 

Whiskey interlaces their fingers careful not to smudge anything. 

“You like it,” Whiskey says, a statement not a question. 

Kent nods, not the first time he’s had his nails painted, but the first time the person doing it hasn’t giggled after, the first time he hasn’t been able to shrug it off as lighthearted fun. Something silly. Something that happened while he was drunk with a girl and he could return to his regularly scheduled "man" look in the morning. 

“You should get some if you like it,” Whiskey says. 

“I’d get chirped,” Kent shakes his head immediately. There are a lot of things he’d like to do but won’t because of hockey. 

“Just do one nail, say it’s a superstition,” Whiskey suggests.

Kent nods, thinks that might work. 

“What about you?” Kent asks. 

“I like it,” he says, “But I just stopped biting my nails, I’m already resisting the urge to pick this off.”

“Mmm satisfying,” Kent says. 

Whiskey picks up the bottle of wine and takes a sip. He hands it to Kent. Kent watches the way his fingers curl around the bottle. It’s pretty. 

He takes a drink. He finds himself tapping on the glass, just to watch his fingers move, just to see the way the light shines off the robin’s egg colour. 

“You're very pretty,” Whiskey reaches up to brush Kent's Hair out of the way. 

“Fuck,” he says, “I got nail polish in your bangs.”

Kent laughs, leans forward to kiss Whiskey anyway. Whiskey angles his head, slides his tongue against Kent’s teeth. Kent puts his hand just under Whiskey’s jaw and even though he’s not looking at it, he knows that his fingernails are blue. He wonders if the feeling would be the same looking down at his hockey gloves. He wonders if Whiskey would paint his nails for him again. He wonders about a lot of things. One thing he doesn’t have to remember though is that he’ll wear this nail polish until it flakes off, chirps be damned, he wants to remember the way Whiskey held his hand and concentrated so hard that his brows furrowed. He wants to remember the way he looked proud when he called Kent pretty.

Maybe it’s worth the trouble. 


End file.
